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by jessamoo



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Short One Shot, elizabeth centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 04:37:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2256132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessamoo/pseuds/jessamoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are, though many would laugh and disagree were you to ask them, some quiet nights on Atlantis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	home

There are, though many would laugh and disagree were you to ask them, some quiet nights on Atlantis.

Some nights you wouldn't sleep, or be roused obscenely early by alarms and shouting and inevitably, an alien creature that couldn't be killed with bullets and that everyone tried to shoot at with the same gusto they would possess were the bullets making a blind bit of difference.

On the quiet nights, Elizabeth listened with a concentration unheard of for so late a time of the night, and she would pick out the sound of the waves. These waves, after a while, became so obstinately rooted within her that she then found it hard to fall asleep without their comforting constancy.

When she travelled away from the sea of her new home, she imagined she could hear the rhythmic crashing of the deep blue as it travelled on the night time breezes. She would look at her people, the solid silhouettes of her soldiers, and wonder if they were so attached to Atlantis as she.

 

She imagined that the heart of the mythic city were somehow lodged in her, squeezed in next to her own, that she felt it thump in time against the fortress of her chest. Somehow the map home to her city became etched into her palms, seeping into the creases of her life line. Its waters worked their way through the wordless spaces of her head. Its sorrowful siren songs sang in her soul - the soul of a war torn woman leader. A soul so cluttered up with steel and guns and hard choices and death.  
She misses Atlantis whenever she leaves it. Forests and deserts held little of the same allure now, and felt so haunted and strange to her, like they were simply empty vessels, waiting for people to fill them with heartbeat. No one ever really understood this, they didn't seem to care much that the bark of trees felt so rough and biting, or that the jagged rocks smiled and cut at her hands.

John however, seemed to become increasingly aware of her vague sense of alienation. He would walk in time with her, their arms knocking together lightly and reassuringly. He'd say 'Almost home' and she let the last word surround her like a warm blanket of morning sunlight. She would smile gratefully, and when he returned the gesture she knew that somehow, he understood. She knew, as if the wild winds had whispered it, that he too felt the tugging twisting ropes that bound them to the city on the sea, that he too had made a bright and new home there.

This was why, on the quiet nights, when away from her mermaids rock of a city, when she couldn't quite fool herself into hearing its faithful waves, she would sit next to John in the dark, and upon brief smiles and wishes of good dreams, she would feel just that one step closer to home, with him by her side.


End file.
